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After he set off an alarm, the 41-year-old man was found naked and covered in blood by sheriff’s
deputies at a Ypsilanti Township middle school about 1 a.m. on June 18.

He was on his knees, screaming, with his hands between his legs.

“There was a significant amount of blood at his waist, legs and groin area,” Sgt. Geoff Fox of
the Washtenaw County sheriff’s office said yesterday.

Six deputies subdued the man and put him into an ambulance.

That’s when they noticed the self-inflicted damage — he had tried to claw off his scrotum and
penis with his bare hands.

It wasn’t until a few days later, when deputies were able to interview the man, that he
explained what might have prompted the attempted castration: bad hallucinogenic mushrooms he had
bought while visiting friends in Ypsilanti.

“He’d taken those prior to him flipping out,” Fox said.

Yesterday, the man remained hospitalized at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann
Arbor.Fox declined to identify him, saying he had not been charged.

Charges — such as disorderly conduct or breaking into the school — will be up to the prosecutor’s
office, Fox said.